Tornadoes
and Downtown Areas
Downtown
Nashville, TN
People
who live in Nashville,
TN, Ft. Worth, TX, Salt Lake City, UT, Oklahoma City, OK, and
now Atlanta, GA know that
tornadoes do hit downtown areas. Many people were injured and
shaken
emotionally when a F2 tornado touched down around 3:30 PM on April 16,
1998 in downtown Nashville. Most of the buildings in the
picture
above suffered minor damage. The most common damage was
blown-out
windows. NewsChannel 5's SkyCam at the top of the BellSouth
Tower
captured dramatic video of the approaching
mesocyclone. Although
a funnel was not visible from the SkyCam, exploding power lines tipped
off NewsChannel 5's chief meteorologist, Ron Howes, that the
vortex
was already in contact with the ground.
The station was knocked
off the air as the tornado moved through (from left to right in this
picture).
The tornado strengthened to an F3 when it moved on into east
Nashville.
One person died- a Vanderbilt student who was pinned to the ground by a
tree while trying to take cover. As a result of the events of
April
16, 1998, Nashville now has a tornado warning siren alert system in
place
for people who might be outside in harms way unable to receive warnings
through radio and TV.
Above is the satellite
view of the storm which produced the downtown tornado.
Photo
from NOAA
Another Tornado almost touched down in downtown Nashville on February 5, 2008. See video below:
